ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through the Super Bowl with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: Who should be the top pick in a playoff fantasy league?
DAVID DOREY
The challenge in picking a player that goes all the way to the Super Bowl is that the Wild Card round is full of visitors that win in each round, even though invariably all the home teams are favored. The safest play is Aaron Rodgers playing at home and the most likely to reach the Super Bowl. Davante Adams runs a close second but this year there are not as dominant teams and upsets happen so often as to be almost expected. Next to Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes gets that extra game from playing in the Wild Card Round but is home until Conference Championships, assuming the Titans make it that far.
Dorey co-founded The Huddle.com in 1997. He's ranked every player and projected every game for the last 23 years and is the author of Fantasy Football: The Next Level. David has appeared on numerous radio, television, newspaper and magazines over the last two decades.
SCOTT SACHS
Quarterbacks typically score more than other offensive players. In the NFC, Rodgers and Brady cancel each other out as only one can advance to the Super Bowl, plus Rodgers has a bye Week 1. Add in Stafford, Murray, and Dak, and that is one crowded QB conference. In the AFC, Patrick Mahomes has the clearest path to the Super Bowl as he's the best QB left standing. Burrow is in his first NFL playoff so he and the young Bengals may be a bit tight. Josh Allen has had consistency issues, plus has a very tough matchup with New England in predicted frigid weather. Kansas City didn't earn the bye, so they get to play the crappy Steelers (again) in KC, so that's additional points available for Mahomes. The KC running game is average at best, so give me "just another sneakerhead" Mahomes at the Patrick rate for the fantasy playoffs.
Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, offering LIVE Talk & Text consulting. He has multiple league championships including 2 perfect seasons. Scott is a past winner of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll and a 2-time winner of the Experts Auction League.
MIKE NAZAREK
Davante Adams. Why? The Packers are the team most likely to make the Big Game and all their playoff games before the Super Bowl will be played at home. Target hog = Big Fantasy Points!
Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc, celebrating 25 years online! His company offers a preseason draft guide, customizable cheat sheets, a multi-use fantasy drafting program including auction values, weekly in-season newsletters, injury reports and free NFL news (updated daily) at its web site, www.ffmastermind.com. He has been playing fantasy football since 1988 and is a four-peat champion of the SI.com Experts Fantasy League, a nationally published writer in several fantasy magazines and a former columnist for SI.com. He's also won nearly $30K in recent seasons of the FFPC High Stakes Main Event. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
I received the No. 1 overall pick in a six-team draft today and the first thing I tried to do (unsuccessfully) was trade down. I don't see a big difference between the top four picks I was considering. Ultimately I went with Tom Brady, feeling he'll play two home games at least, he'll be heavily favored in the first game, and he has stackable teammates which you can draft later (and I did). And if things fall Tampa Bay's way, I might get four games. Playoff success is all about bankrolling 2-3 teams, making sure you have at least one front in each conference. I shied away from Aaron Rodgers because I knew Davante Adams wouldn't get back to me and other Packers receivers are less exciting, and I wasn't sure I could get enough Kansas City stuff to make Patrick Mahomes work in my slot. But if you wanted to start a playoff draft with Rodgers, Mahomes, Josh Allen, or Brady, I wouldn't passionately oppose you. It's been a wide-open year.
An FSWA award-winning writer (with nominations in four sports) and podcaster, Scott has been with Yahoo Sports since 2008. On the rare occasions when the computer is turned off, he enjoys word games, poker, music, film, game theory, and a variety of condiments. He lives in suburban Detroit.
IAN ALLAN
Patrick Mahomes, I think. It’s my belief that the Packers will win the thing. They’re definitely the safest choice to be there. So Aaron Rodgers will be playing in three games and putting up good numbers. He’s the safe choice. But Green Bay has a bye, which caps Rodgers at three games. I’m of the school of thought that there’s no way the No. 1 seed on the AFC side (Tennessee) is making it to the Super Bowl. So there will be a quarterback from that conference that will play in four games — Mahomes, Allen or Burrow, most likely. Any one of those guys in four games will finish with more overall production than Rodgers will manage in three. So while Rodgers in the safe pick, I will go more aggressive and try to latch onto that four-game quarterback — Mahomes (even though he came in below expectations in the regular season).
Allan co-founded Fantasy Football Index in 1987. He and fellow journalism student Bruce Taylor launched the first newsstand fantasy football magazine as a class project at the University of Washington. For more than three decades, Allan has written and edited most of the content published in the magazines, newsletters and at www.fantasyindex.com. An exhaustive researcher, he may be the only person in the country who has watched at least some of every preseason football game played since the early 1990s. Allan is a member of the FSTA Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.
PAUL CHARCHIAN
Travis Kelce should be the first player taken for two reasons. First, he's so far ahead of his position that I bet you can't even name the next-best playoff tight end. Second, Kansas City has the most viable pathway to a four-game playoff schedule.
Charchian is the CEO at GuillotineLeagues.com. Guillotine Leagues are a new way to play in which the lowest-scoring team each week gets chopped from the league, and all the players go to the waiver wire. Charchian was inducted into the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.
ANDY RICHARDSON
With only two teams getting byes nowadays, the odds of one team playing in four games are way up. Since I don't think anyone outside of Tennessee thinks the Titans are going to the Super Bowl, it seems pretty likely an AFC team will do it. Mahomes, Allen, Burrow would then be the best candidates. Of those guys, Burrow is the longest shot (will the Bengals be just "happy to be there"?), while Allen is the most likely to be affected by weather, especially this week -- no way will Bills-Patriots be a shootout in 5-degree temperatures. So I guess it's Mahomes, or perhaps Travis Kelce if a TE is required (but quarterbacks usually score the most points). If you're a believer in Tom Brady overcoming all odds and team injuries to get back to yet another Super Bowl, and I can't fault anyone who feels that way, I guess he's also a fine choice.
Richardson has been a contributing writer and editor to the Fantasy Football Index magazine and www.fantasyindex.com since 2002. His responsibilities include team defense and IDP projections and various site features, and he has run the magazine's annual experts draft and auction leagues since their inception. He previews all the NFL games on Saturdays and writes a wrap-up column on Mondays during the NFL season.